Having a Subordinate Is So Convenient
August 3rd. Eleven in the morning. I went to visit the house where I would be living from now on with Jang Tae-ri and Shin Jo-woon. The moment Shin Jo-woon laid eyes on me, he barked out shamelessly, as if he'd had no idea I was coming.
"What about the dorm? Why are you even here?"
Rich words, coming from the man who had texted me ten minutes earlier asking what time I'd arrive — but there was a persona to maintain, so I answered obediently. I had come because I couldn't in good conscience let the two of them live there alone. At that, Shin Jo-woon pulled a face of pure incredulity and demanded to know exactly whose permission I'd gotten to pull a stunt like this.
"I received Miss Tae-ri's father's blessing."
When I answered with my head held high, he grumbled in reply.
"So my father's blessing doesn't count, huh?"
"Marching up to your father and saying, 'I love your son's wife, so let me come live with them' would be a bit strange, wouldn't it?"
"And telling her father, 'I love your daughter, so I shall board at the newlyweds' home' isn't equally strange?"
He kept nitpicking, so I asked whether he disliked having me move in — and no, apparently that wasn't it either.
My stomach was growling, so we sat down to a meal — at which point Shin Jo-woon, still in his suit, wrapped an apron around himself and asked, "You hungry? Want me to make something?"
Tying on an apron is the universal signal for 'I shall now do the cooking.' So I demanded pizza. A few days earlier, Shin Jo-woon had promised that if I moved into the spare room of his house, he would feed me pizza every day with a different topping each time. And yet, having said all that—
the moment I moved in and asked for my pizza, Shin Jo-woon sneered down at me.
"Freeloaders don't get a say."
When I asked what had become of the promised pizza, the situation, he informed me, was different now from back then. When I asked what was different, he explained that the pizza offer had only ever applied to pigs moving in as pets, whereas I had now moved in as a prospective member of the family, so no dice. I asked whether I couldn't just be a pet pig at mealtimes, and was scolded for having no shame.
"Stop toying with the kid."
Jang Tae-ri, unable to watch any longer, stepped in and ordered the pizza herself... I'm worried. Seeing it reach this point on day one, I suspect the three of us living together will not be enjoyable in the slightest.
I do not want to live with Shin Jo-woon.
Come dinnertime, what did he do but tie on that apron once again, then turn to me and ask what I wanted to eat. Jang Tae-ri had been called into the office on urgent business, leaving just the two of us. Partly on account of the afternoon's affairs, I kept my mouth shut and endured — but no, he simply had to press me, say anything, anything at all. So I asked him to make me a steak, whereupon he called me shameless yet again, stripped off the apron, hung it around my neck, and walked out.
"You make it. I'll be back in forty minutes."
Those were the only words he left behind. But I have never once cooked in my life. At the dorm I lived on nothing but packaged salads, and even before I moved into the dorm I had never cooked. Besides, the kitchen implements in this house are far too complicated and bewildering. In the end I simply stood there, rooted to the spot, watching the time drain away.
Shin Jo-woon, who had sworn he'd be gone forty minutes, came back in five, clicked his tongue, and lectured me.
"What are you doing waving that knife around?"
"I have never cooked before in my life."
When I answered honestly, he berated me — never cooked, at my age? He was making me so unbearably mortified that I pointed out one's cooking skill has absolutely nothing to do with growing older or eating meals, at which he sneered:
"Well, sure. Pigs do wander into the kitchen all the time — they just don't do the cooking themselves."
He is truly, truly wicked.
Yesterday's shock has not yet faded. As of today, I have stopped calling Shin Jo-woon "Whale." Calling that man a whale — is that not an insult to whales themselves?
When I told Jang Tae-ri about it, she happily joined me in roasting him, saying his tongue had always been a slippery, silver little thing.
"Couldn't the two of us just live here alone?"
I deliberated for a while before asking her that, and she said she'd check with the production staff.
"Though honestly? Your agency's probably going to say no."
While riding in the car to a photo shoot, a text arrived from Shin Jo-woon. Given that the man had once ignored my texts outright, I read his — and did not reply.
5:00 PM — After I ignored his texts one after another, Shin Jo-woon called. Naturally, I did not answer.
10:00 PM — The moment I finished the shoot and stepped outside, there stood Shin Jo-woon, waiting in front of the studio. I gave him a polite nod and tried to brush past as if I didn't know him, but he insisted on trailing after me, pressing me on why I hadn't picked up. I said I'd had nothing to say, so I hadn't; he kept following anyway, asking why I was angry. When I asked whether he genuinely didn't know, he said he wouldn't have come if he did. I told him it upset me, the way he kept calling me a pig. He claimed he hadn't realized I'd take it this badly, and swore he wouldn't tease me anymore. When I asked if he meant it, he said it was a lie.
Truly... truly wicked.
Something tremendous just happened!
Around midnight, Shin Jo-woon came by again and apologized yet again, insisting the earlier remark had been a joke. When I said I didn't believe him, he pulled five whole pizzas out of his back seat and told me to eat one apiece with the members. I declared I would accept the pizza but not the apology, at which he called me petty. The bottomlessness of Shin Jo-woon's conscience has now been laid bare for all to see.
But that was not the tremendous thing. While we were bickering over how little his apology resembled an actual apology, a loud bang rang out nearby.
From this point on is the tremendous thing.
Shin Jo-woon told me to stay put and ran toward the sound alone. At first I simply stood there and waited for him. But after roughly thirty seconds of thought, I arrived at a realization: I was under no obligation to obey Shin Jo-woon. Should something truly have happened, I would be of far more use than he — and so I too started running in that direction and... One moment. A phone call.
To be continued.
I just received a phone call. The PD says that since this could become a problem, I am not to breathe a word about it to anyone.
When Rembrary arrived at the outdoor set of Dear God, he paid especially close attention to Maeng Woo-shin and Lim Yu-han — more so than before. Yu-han because of the ox-head demon and Nakroo; Woo-shin because of Daeju. But while Yu-han would smile and wave the moment their eyes met, Woo-shin dodged his gaze with practiced subtlety, as though even a fleeting exchange of glances were more than he could bear. It was patently clear he still resented Daeju's order to keep Rembrary in his care.
"Yeon-woo, you went out at night with Maeng Woo-shin again, didn't you?"
"Yes. Just got back."
"Then why does Maeng Woo-shin seem even colder toward you now?"
Maeng Woo-shin's frigid attitude was suspicious enough that even Jongwoo had picked up on it. The moment he noticed Woo-shin going out of his way to avoid Rembrary, Jongwoo had begun to worry in earnest. Whatever else could be said of the man, Maeng Woo-shin was a wildly popular actor and a certified top star. Earning the animosity of someone who commanded both box-office appeal and genuine acting chops was poison for any actor's career.
"Nothing happened. We didn't fight."
Rembrary answered with perfect composure and climbed into the van. Jongwoo, his gaze darting back and forth between the two men, followed Rembrary inside with a fretful expression — now utterly convinced that the two of them had gone out together and gotten into a fight. But after they finished filming the scene where Rembrary plunges into the water, Jongwoo's certainty began to crumble at the edges. The instant Rembrary pulled himself out of the water, Maeng Woo-shin strode over and flung a huge towel down onto Rembrary's head. Not a damp towel, not a dirty one — a brand-new towel, fluffy and perfectly dried.
Did Maeng Woo-shin just look after Yeon-woo? Jongwoo's jaw dropped — but Rembrary, utterly unbothered, scrubbed at his soaked hair with the towel and grumbled away.
"Senior, if you're going to hand someone a towel, hand it to them properly."
"I covered your head with it properly, didn't I?"
"That was throwing, not covering."
"For fuck's sake, what do you want from me?"
Was he looking after him? So they did fight after all? Jongwoo was thrown into confusion all over again. Had Woo-shin thrown the towel because he wanted to give it — or because he'd wanted to throw something, and tossing anything else would have caused a scene? Then a curse burst out of Woo-shin's mouth, and Jongwoo decided that yes, the two of them were fighting, and moved to intervene.
"Um—"
But before Jongwoo could get the word out, Maeng Woo-shin shoved the thermos he'd been carrying roughly into Rembrary's hands, swearing as he did.
"You'll catch a cold, so drink some damn warm water."
Rembrary accepted the thermos with perfect calm and twisted off the cap. The nutty fragrance of roasted barley tea bloomed into the air.
"Thank you."
"It's not like I gave it to you because I wanted to."
Jongwoo, thoroughly bewildered, studied the two of them yet again. As Maeng Woo-shin treated Rembrary colder and meaner than usual, the staff — who had been watching with growing unease — lapsed into confusion as well. They were every bit as lost as Jongwoo. Was that supposed to mean they were getting along better, or getting along worse?
Lim Yu-han supplied the answer with an exasperated "Ah!" of realization.
"Hey, Wooshin! You're such a tsun—"
"Absolutely not."
Woo-shin cut her off before she could even finish, his face twisted in a scowl.
"Don't say disgusting things."
"That's exactly what it looks like."
"It is not."
"Then why do you keep fussing over Yeon-woo while acting so annoyed about it?"
"Because I want to."
"Then why do you? It's not like Yeon-woo's blackmailing you into taking care of him."
Because Daeju ordered me to—
Woo-shin couldn't bring himself to say it, and his face simply hardened in silent frustration.
The moment Rembrary climbed into the van, Jongwoo — curiosity winning out at last — hurried in after him and pressed,
"Yeon-woo, what on earth happened between you and Maeng Woo-shin? Hm?"
"Nothing happened."
"You two really didn't do drugs together out there, did you? Hm? It's absolutely not that, right? Friendship between accomplices and all that?"
"I told you it's not."
"Then why's he acting like that? It's suspicious! And besides, that night you went out with him, your texting suddenly got all weird too."
"Was it weird?"
"You seemed like someone on drugs."
"Maeng senior said people look affectionate if you use that emoticon."
"You have to use it sparingly for it to look affectionate. Dumping that grinning mark all over every sentence doesn't look sweet, it looks creepy."
"Hm..."
"Use the one you started out with — the animal one with the little cat mouth. It suits the way you talk better."
Jongwoo traced a ^^ mark in the air with his fingers as he offered his advice.
"If you stick this on your texts, you just look smug and unlikeable."
I knew it — Maeng Woo-shin lied through his teeth!
While Jongwoo was off collecting a fresh change of clothes from the stylist, Rembrary stripped off his damp clothes, wound an enormous towel around his entire body, and attempted to tattle to Daeju by text.
It worked. Roughly five minutes later, a text arrived from Maeng Woo-shin.
Rembrary knew exactly what that middle-finger gesture meant. It was a curse — one telling the recipient to go get fucked. And that curse had been hurled, via text message no less, by a subordinate far beneath him: a man who was neither a full priest nor even a novice priest, but occupied some vague, undefined station in between.
Shocked to his core, Rembrary forwarded the message to Daeju exactly as it stood. Three minutes after that, another text arrived from Maeng Woo-shin.
Properly chastened, the "go get fucked" had vanished from the message. What was more, he was crying.
Truly, having a subordinate priest below one was ever so convenient. Rembrary smiled in deep contentment and sent his reply to Maeng Woo-shin.
Afterward, as he set about composing a message of praise for Daeju, he was suddenly seized by a strange feeling — and jerked his head up.